Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DHARMA SPRING
Reader
Including writings by
THICH NHAT HANH PEMA CHODRON BHANTE HENEPOLA GUNARATANA
SHARON SALZBERG KHENCHEN THRANGU RINPOCHE JOHN DAIDO LOORI
Autumn 2015
Edited by
Peter Turner and the editors
of Dharma Spring
Photographs by
Andy Karr, Julie DuBose,
and Michael Wood
DHARMA SPRING
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Wed like to thank go Andy Karr, Julie DuBose, and Michael Wood [[TO CONFIRM]]
for gracious use of their photographs. Thanks also go out to the publishers whose books
are excerpted here.
DHARMA SPRING
45 Prospect Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Cover and frontispiece photographs by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more
of Michaels work go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
Editing copyright 2015 by Dharma Spring. All rights reserved.
Design and typesetting by Laura Shaw Design, Inc. www.lshawdesign.com
Contents
Part One Where We Begin
Why Meditate? 15
SAYADAW U PANDITA
Leave No Trace 21
SHUNRYU SUZUKI
26
Dont Blink 35
DAININ KATAGIRI
Already Buddha 45
JOSHO PAT PHELAN
Be Grateful to Everyone 81
PEMA CHDRN
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PREFACE
Welcome to Dharma Spring. And welcome to our first e-book anthology
of excerpts from some of our favorite books by Buddhist teachers and
writers.
For us at Dharma Spring this book celebrates the beginning of a journey as we put the finishing touches on our new website (www.dharmaspring.com), which will be available in October. Our site will provide
an array of book excerpts, interviews, book reviews, book round-ups
on specific topics as well as original essays and interviews with authors
and teachers whose works we feature. Our online bookstore will offer
a broad selection of books for those new to meditation and long-time
practitioners of Buddhism alike, from publishers large and small.
This e-book is also a gift to thank you for joining us on this journey. This
particular e-book covers a lot of ground, introducing you to the breadth
of topics well explore on our website. Future e-book anthologies will
focus on specific topics such as working with emotions, specific meditation practices, common obstacles to practice, and more.
If youre interested in Dharma Spring and want to get advanced access
to our sitea private viewingplease let us know. Were open to your
ideas and suggestions about how we can improve the website. Tell us
what you think at info@dharmaspring.com or contact me directly at
peter@dharmaspring.com.
Were looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours,
Peter Turner
Co-Founder
PART ONE
Where We Begin
Previous page: Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels
work go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
EDITORS NOTE: We often feel a deep sense of isolation from ourselves and
from others. But that is not our true nature. Our true nature lies in our deep,
subtle connection with others, a connection born out of a truly felt sense of our
own fundamental goodness. This quality, while inherent, requires cultivation
and a path to follow. This path, as Sharon Salzberg so beautifully describes in
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, leads to the liberation of
the heart which is love.
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12
13
Why Meditate?
Its a Fair Question
Sayadaw U Pandita
15
16
17
18
EDITORS NOTE: If you watch closely, calming your mind, you can see how
feelings arise and interact. Soon patterns emerge: we seem to gravitate toward
the extremes of pleasure or pain and ignore whats in between them. In her book
The Spirit of the Buddha, former Buddhist nun Martine Batchelor presents her
favorite selections from the Pali canonsuch as this one on pleasant, painful,
and neutral feelingsaccompanied by her own commentary.
20
Leave No Trace
The Practice of Zen
Shunryu Suzuki
Editors Note: People who are new to meditation sometimes think its about
getting rid of our thoughts or at least not letting thoughts carry us away. Of
course, we have to thinkits the nature of the mind. But right thinking, writes
Shunryu Suzuki, does not leave any shadow of your relative confused mind.
This shadow or trace is what amplifies your thought, setting up a barrier
between your mind and the things you experience. When you do something,
Suzuki write, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving
no trace of yourself.
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22
Overcoming Our
Resistance to Practice
Tulku Thondup
24
PART TWO
Previous page: Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels
work go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
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the glass, look after it, until when, one day, it slips out of your
handsmash!No problem. Why is there no problem? Because
you saw its brokenness before it broke.
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31
EDITORS NOTE: We are all weary commuters in search of the road that leads
home, restlessly seeking what it turns out we already have. The metaphor is not
at all new, but Ethan Nichterns approach to exploring the road map of the Buddhist path feels original and alive. Nichtern, a senior teacher or Shastri in the
Shambhala tradition, has written a new book brimming with freshness, new
angles of perspective, and a provocative and culturally relevant lens through
which to see this map of the road home.
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34
Dont Blink
Facing Impermanence
Dainin Katagiri
EDITORS NOTE: There are some Buddhist teachers who have a knack for
putting words together in a way that is especially potent. Think of teachers
such Chgyam Trungpa with phrases like spiritual materialism and idiot
compassion, or Pema Chdrns start where you are or dont bite the hook.
Zen master Dainin Katagiri (19281990) has a different sort of language style
when it comes to teaching. Though he was not a native English speakeror
maybe partly because ofhe puts words together in a way that can seem odd
at first, as if they dont quite make sense. But yet they do.
aybe you think that if you practice zazen, you will find paradise. This is just your mind. When you do zazen, dont have
any expectations. You dont know what will happen. Zen masters always tell you, Dont expect enlightenmentjust sit! But
have you experienced doing zazen in that way? You always look
at your zazen and say to yourself, Whats the matter with my
zazen? Hey, dont sleep! But sleep is always waiting for you; a
dizzy mind is always waiting for you.
It is the momentary structure of time that makes you talk
to yourself that way. Impermanence creates a gap that makes
your mind blink, so you want to escape. When you find it difficult
to practice zazen, youre blinking. But dont escape! You cant
escape the cruelty of impermanence, which is always cutting off
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your life, so watch yourself carefully when you realize that youre
blinking. Try to face impermanence directly, with a way-seeking
mind. I dont mean you shouldnt blink your eyes in zazen; thats
okay. But, as much as possible, try to go ahead. Take one step
without blinking your mind. Turn your mind away from the gap
you sense from impermanence, and turn toward true impermanence. Stare at reality face-to-face, without blinking, and become
yourself with open eyes. This is the Buddhas practice.
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37
Your Practice is
to Eat Your Life
Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
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40
they eat generates boundless energy, intelligence, and compassion. It turns out that practice accomplishment is nothing more
than learning to be natural with our experiencenot unlike the
bodys natural ability to digest food.
As practitioners we might wonder: What would it be like to
be so natural, so ordinary? We should ask this question again
and again, because it does away with all the fluffy fantasies we
have about spirituality; all this waiting for something special to
happen; all the excitement we feel when something unexplainable occurs; all the disappointment we encounter when nothing
special comes our way. It directs us to the point of practice: finding contentment in being fully human, natural, and ordinary.
From The Power of an Open Question: The Buddhas Path to Freedom, by Elizabeth
Mattis-Namgyel (Shambhala Publications, 2010). Copyright 2010 Elizabeth
Mattis-Namgyel. All rights reserved.
41
Developing a
Different Attitude
Toward Problems
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
EDITORS NOTE: Heres a deeply encouraging teaching from Tibetan Buddhist master Zopa Rinpoche on learning to welcome our problems because they
are actually the source of our awakening.
Photograph by Julie DuBose. Used by permission. To see more of Julies work, please
visit http://effortlessbeautybook.com/.
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44
Already Buddha
Josho Pat Phelan
45
46
48
PART THREE
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Previous page: Photograph by Julie DuBose. Used by permission. To see more of Julies work,
please visit http://effortlessbeautybook.com/.
Stopping, Calming,
Resting, Healing
Thich Nhat Hanh
uddhist meditation has two aspectsshamatha and vipashyana. We tend to stress the importance of vipashyana (looking deeply) because it can bring us insight and liberate us from
suffering and afflictions. But the practice of shamatha (stopping) is fundamental. If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.
We have to learn the art of stoppingstopping our thinking, our habit energies (vashana), our forgetfulness, the strong
emotions that rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like
storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then turn it off.
We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this
state of agitation? How can we stop our despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand.
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3. E
mbracingWe hold our anger in our two arms like a
mother holding her crying baby. Our mindfulness embraces
our emotion, and this alone can calm our anger and ourselves.
4. Looking deeplyWhen we are calm enough, we can look
deeply to understand what has brought this anger to be, what
is causing our babys discomfort.
5. InsightThe fruit of looking deeply is understanding the
many causes and conditions, primary and secondary, that
have brought about our anger, that are causing our baby to
cry. Perhaps our baby is hungry. Perhaps his diaper pin is
piercing his skin. Our anger was triggered when our friend
spoke to us meanly, and suddenly we remember that he was
not at his best today because his father is dying. We reflect
like this until we have some insights into what has caused our
suffering. With insight, we know what to do and what not to
do to change the situation.
After calming, the third function of shamatha is resting.
Suppose someone standing alongside a river throws a pebble in
the air and it falls down into the river. The pebble allows itself to
sink slowly and reach the riverbed without any effort. Once the
pebble is at the bottom, it continues to rest, allowing the water to
pass by. When we practice sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest just like that pebble. We can allow ourselves to sink
naturally into the position of sitting resting, without effort. We
have to learn the art of resting, allowing our body and mind to
rest. If we have wounds in our body or in our mind, we have to
rest so they can heal themselves.
Stopping, calming, and resting are preconditions for healing. If we cannot stop, the course of our destruction will just continue. The world needs healing. Individuals, communities, and
nations need healing.
From The Heart of the Buddhas Teaching, by Thich Nhat Hanh (Harmony, 1999).
Copyright 1998, 2015 by Unified Buddhist Church, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
53
Mindfulness
of the Breath
Joseph Goldstein
n the Satipatthana Sutta, the Buddha gives a series of progressive instructions regarding the breath, which is the first of the
contemplations on the body.
Here, and in many other discourses, the Buddha is pointing us to an invaluable, and often overlooked, treasure: our own
breath.
Bhikkhus, when mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated, is of great fruit and great
benefit. When mindfulness of breathing is developed
and cultivated, it fulfils the four foundations of
mindfulness. When the four foundations of mind-
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Antidote for
a Distracted Mind
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
EDITORS NOTE: Regardless of whether we are new to mindfulness meditation or are seasoned practitioners, we all experience distractions that break our
concentration and our ability to cultivate mindfulness. Actually, losing our concentrationbecoming mindlessis an inevitable part of the practice of meditation. Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg, says Beginning again and again
is the actual practice, not a problem to overcome. Here, Bhante Henepola
Gunaratana, a monk and revered meditation teacher in the Theravada tradition, offers one of his favorite techniques for working with the distracted mind.
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Meeting Self-Criticism
With Lovingkindness
Ajahn Sumedho
EDITORS NOTE: We tend to bring high hopes and expectations to our meditation practice. We come looking for greater peace of mind, greater happiness.
Theravadin monk Ajahn Sumedho explains that if everything goes right, you
will meet all kinds of mental states in your practice, including self-hatred and
anger. Meditation offers us a new way of facing those feelings we normally
avoid or repress.
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EDITORS NOTE: What is the heart of koan practice? One reasonable answer
is found here in John Tarrants charming account of how he got started at it
simply by noting and refusing to let go of the unanswerable questions that arose
for him from life. When I was off balance, Tarrant writes, koans pushed me
further off balance and into unknown territory. I liked that.
t twenty-two I was an occasional secretary and live-in gardener to the Australian poet Judith Wright. In her garden,
butterflies swirled; satin bowerbirds built bowers and danced
with flowers and blue clothes pegs in their beaks; lorikeets and
small wallabies passed through on their separate roads. At the
foot of the paddock the leftover rainforest begangreat festooned trees hanging in the sky like branching neurons. When
the neighbor died, his wife buried him down by the creek and
dared the timidly inquiring police to find him. I had a desk in
the basement, and bush rats ran over my toes. The hallucinatory mushrooms I occasionally took seemed hardly necessary to
make life more numinous.
Still, there were questions that would not go away. None of
the usual solutions to life that were on offer meant much to me
Photograph by Michael Wood. (Used by permission.) To see more of Michaels work
go to http://openingthegoodeyebook.com/.
71
and, like many young people, I didnt at first expect to live for a
long time. When I continued living anyway and needed to make
a life, I found myself yearning to make sense of things. I had
noticed, as almost everyone does, moments of great and apparently everlasting beauty followed by standard-issue miseries and
found the incongruence hard to deal with. I wanted to be loyal to
that beauty while not dodging the dark bits.
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both good luck and bad, both joy and pain, both wealth and poverty. In a beautiful stanza, the Kashmiri master Shakyashri, who
came to Tibet at the beginning of the thirteenth century, writes:
When happy I will dedicate my virtues to all;
may benet and happiness pervade all of space!
When suering I will take on the pains of all beings;
may the ocean of suering become dry!
Today, as our world becomes ever more complex, with the
consequence of making even our everyday lives a source of stress
and constant challenge, I believe that these practical insights of
Tibetan mind training can bring great benet to many. In my
own life, during now more than two decades living in the West
amid all the complexities of modern existence, I have come to
appreciate more deeply the value of the Tibetan mind training
teaching. Confronted with the common question of how to maintain a healthy balance between parenthood, marriage, and work,
and, more specically, having to deal with the critical challenge
of how to stay sane and rooted against all the social and cultural
forces pulling us in so many directions, I have found the clear and
poignant wisdom of lojong, especially the advice on maintaining
a joyful state of mind, a tremendous source of personal inspiration and strength. So by making these Tibetan mind training
teachings available for a general audience, it is my sincere hope
and wish that many readers will be able to share in the wonderful insights of the mind training teachings and experience their
profound rewards.
Excerpted and condensed from Essential Mind Training, translated, edited,
and with an introduction by Thupten Jinpa (Wisdom Publications, 2011).
Copyright 2011 The Institute of Tibetan Classics.
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Be Grateful
to Everyone
Pema Chdrn
EDITORS NOTE: Be grateful for the people in our lives who drive us nuts? It
may sound counterintuitive, but Pema Chdrn shows the wisdom of the logong slogan be grateful to everyone. It certainly requires re-orienting the way
we relate to the difficult people around us, but doing so is profoundly transformational and spiritually rewarding.
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ror us and give us the chance to befriend all of that ancient stuff
that we carry around like a backpack full of granite boulders.
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investigate whether or not there is an actual difference in substance between the twonot superficially, but in reality. Is one
good and superior, and the other evil or inferior? Is one empty
and the other not?
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We Are Identical
with the Buddhas
Lama Putse Pema Tashi
mong the synonyms for buddha nature arepotentialandelement. A poisonous snake has the potential to
be poisonous; when it bites, it can instantly inject the poison. In
the same way, we possess the potential for, or basic element of,
enlightenment, and that is why we can awaken it.
Right now, we have the basic element of disturbing emotions
because we have not abandoned the emotional obscuration.
Since we have this potential, when we encounter difficult circumstances we become angry, attached, or proud. Nevertheless,
we also have the potential for enlightenment. If we remove the
obscurations, we can immediately realize the awakened state.
This is like extracting gold from gold ore. The ore possesses the
basic element of gold, so if it is smelted, the gold will appear.
Similarly, milk has the basic component of butter, and if it is
churned, the butter will appear. Water, however, does not have
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